30,999 research outputs found
Percolation-to-hopping crossover in conductor-insulator composites
Here, we show that the conductivity of conductor-insulator composites in
which electrons can tunnel from each conducting particle to all others may
display both percolation and tunneling (i.e. hopping) regimes depending on few
characteristics of the composite. Specifically, we find that the relevant
parameters that give rise to one regime or the other are (where is
the size of the conducting particles and is the tunneling length) and the
specific composite microstructure. For large values of , percolation
arises when the composite microstructure can be modeled as a regular lattice
that is fractionally occupied by conducting particle, while the tunneling
regime is always obtained for equilibrium distributions of conducting particles
in a continuum insulating matrix. As decreases the percolating behavior
of the conductivity of lattice-like composites gradually crosses over to the
tunneling-like regime characterizing particle dispersions in the continuum. For
values lower than the conductivity has tunneling-like
behavior independent of the specific microstructure of the composite.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure
Dielectric response of a polar fluid trapped in a spherical nanocavity
We present extensive Molecular Dynamics simulation results for the structure,
static and dynamical response of a droplet of 1000 soft spheres carrying
extended dipoles and confined to spherical cavities of radii , 3, and 4
nm embedded in a dielectric continuum of permittivity . The
polarisation of the external medium by the charge distribution inside the
cavity is accounted for by appropriate image charges. We focus on the influence
of the external permittivity on the static and dynamic properties
of the confined fluid. The density profile and local orientational order
parameter of the dipoles turn out to be remarkably insensitive to .
Permittivity profiles inside the spherical cavity are calculated
from a generalised Kirkwood formula. These profiles oscillate in phase with the
density profiles and go to a ``bulk'' value away from the
confining surface; is only weakly dependent on , except
for (vacuum), and is strongly reduced compared to the
permittivity of a uniform (bulk) fluid under comparable thermodynamic
conditions.
The dynamic relaxation of the total dipole moment of the sample is found to
be strongly dependent on , and to exhibit oscillatory behaviour when
; the relaxation is an order of magnitude faster than in the bulk.
The complex frequency-dependent permittivity is sensitive to
at low frequencies, and the zero frequency limit
is systematically lower than the ``bulk'' value
of the static primitivity.Comment: 12 pages including 17 figure
Normal ground state of dense relativistic matter in a magnetic field
The properties of the ground state of relativistic matter in a magnetic field
are examined within the framework of a Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model. The main
emphasis of this study is the normal ground state, which is realized at
sufficiently high temperatures and/or sufficiently large chemical potentials.
In contrast to the vacuum state, which is characterized by the magnetic
catalysis of chiral symmetry breaking, the normal state is accompanied by the
dynamical generation of the chiral shift parameter . In the chiral
limit, the value of determines a relative shift of the longitudinal
momenta (along the direction of the magnetic field) in the dispersion relations
of opposite chirality fermions. We argue that the chirality remains a good
approximate quantum number even for massive fermions in the vicinity of the
Fermi surface and, therefore, the chiral shift is expected to play an important
role in many types of cold dense relativistic matter, relevant for applications
in compact stars. The qualitative implications of the revealed structure of the
normal ground state on the physics of protoneutron stars are discussed. A
noticeable feature of the parameter is that it is insensitive to
temperature when , where is the chemical potential, and
{\it increases} with temperature for . The latter implies that the
chiral shift parameter is also generated in the regime relevant for heavy ion
collisions.Comment: 28 pages, 6 figures; v2: title changed in journa
Budding and vesiculation induced by conical membrane inclusions
Conical inclusions in a lipid bilayer generate an overall spontaneous
curvature of the membrane that depends on concentration and geometry of the
inclusions. Examples are integral and attached membrane proteins, viruses, and
lipid domains. We propose an analytical model to study budding and vesiculation
of the lipid bilayer membrane, which is based on the membrane bending energy
and the translational entropy of the inclusions. If the inclusions are placed
on a membrane with similar curvature radius, their repulsive membrane-mediated
interaction is screened. Therefore, for high inclusion density the inclusions
aggregate, induce bud formation, and finally vesiculation. Already with the
bending energy alone our model allows the prediction of bud radii. However, in
case the inclusions induce a single large vesicle to split into two smaller
vesicles, bending energy alone predicts that the smaller vesicles have
different sizes whereas the translational entropy favors the formation of
equal-sized vesicles. Our results agree well with those of recent computer
simulations.Comment: 11 pages, 12 figure
Time delay occultation data of the Helios spacecraft for probing the electron density distribution in the solar corona
S-band time delay measurements were collected from the spacecraft Helios A and B during three solar occultations in 1975/76 within heliocentric distances of about 3 and 215 earth radius in terms of range, Doppler frequency shift, and electron content. Characteristic features of measurement and data processing are described. Typical data sets are discussed to probe the electron density distribution near the sun (west and east limb as well) including the outer and extended corona. Steady-state and dynamical aspects of the solar corona are presented and compared with earth-bound-K-coronagraph measurements. Using a weighted least squares estimation, parameters of an average coronal electron density profile are derived in a preliminary analysis to yield electron densities at r = 3, 65, 215 earth radius. Transient phenomena are discussed and a velocity of propagation v is nearly equal to 900 km/s is determined for plasma ejecta from a solar flare observed during an extraordinary set of Helios B electron content measurements
Coarse-graining diblock copolymer solutions: a macromolecular version of the Widom-Rowlinson model
We propose a systematic coarse-grained representation of block copolymers,
whereby each block is reduced to a single ``soft blob'' and effective intra- as
well as intermolecular interactions act between centres of mass of the blocks.
The coarse-graining approach is applied to simple athermal lattice models of
symmetric AB diblock copolymers, in particular to a Widom-Rowlinson-like model
where blocks of the same species behave as ideal polymers (i.e. freely
interpenetrate), while blocks of opposite species are mutually avoiding walks.
This incompatibility drives microphase separation for copolymer solutions in
the semi-dilute regime. An appropriate, consistent inversion procedure is used
to extract effective inter- and intramolecular potentials from Monte Carlo
results for the pair distribution functions of the block centres of mass in the
infinite dilution limit.Comment: To be published in mol.phys(2005
Surface melting of the vortex lattice
We discuss the effect of an (ab)-surface on the melting transition of the
pancake-vortex lattice in a layered superconductor within a density functional
theory approach. Both discontinuous and continuous surface melting are
predicted for this system, although the latter scenario occupies the major part
of the low-field phase diagram. The formation of a quasi-liquid layer below the
bulk melting temperature inhibits the appearance of a superheated solid phase,
yielding an asymmetric hysteretic behavior which has been seen in experiments.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Failure properties of loaded fiber bundles having a lower cutoff in fiber threshold distribution
Presence of lower cutoff in fiber threshold distribution may affect the
failure properties of a bundle of fibers subjected to external load. We
investigate this possibility both in a equal load sharing (ELS) fiber bundle
model and in local load sharing (LLS) one. We show analytically that in ELS
model, the critical strength gets modified due to the presence of lower cutoff
and it becomes bounded by an upper limit. Although the dynamic exponents for
the susceptibility and relaxation time remain unchanged, the avalanche size
distribution shows a permanent deviation from the mean-fiels power law. In the
LLS model, we analytically estimate the upper limit of the lower cutoff above
which the bundle fails at one instant. Also the system size variation of
bundle's strength and the avalanche statistics show strong dependence on the
lower cutoff level.Comment: 7 pages and 7 figure
Scattering and pair production by a potential barrier
Scattering and electron-positron pair production by a one-dimensional
potential is considered in the framework of the matrix formalism. The
solutions of the Dirac equation are classified according to frequency sign. The
Bogoliubov transformation relating the in- and out-states are given. We show
that the norm of a solution of the wave equation is determined by the largest
amplitude of its asymptotic form when . For a number of
potentials we give the explicit expressions for the complete in- and out-sets
of orthonormalized wave functions. We note that in principle virtual vacuum
processes in external field influence the phase of wave function of scattered
particle..Comment: 13 pages, LATEX 2e, no figure
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